Georges Bataille Quotes - Page 2

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• To others, the universe seems decent because decent people have welded eyes. That is why they fear lewdness. They are never frightened by the crowing of a rooster or when strolling under a starry heaven. In general, people savor the "pleasures of the flesh" only on the condition that they may be insipid.

  Georges Bataille

  Fear, Eye, People

  25 Copy quote

• The power of death signifies that this real world can only have a neutral image of life, that life's intimacy does not reveal it's dazzling consumption until the moment it gives out.

  Georges Bataille

  Real, Giving, Doe

  Georges Bataille (1989). “Theory of religion”, Zone Books (NY)

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• I think that knowledge enslaves us, that at the base of all knowledge there is a servility, the acceptation of a way of life wherein each moment has meaning only in relation to another or others that will follow it.

  Georges Bataille

  Thinking, Way, Moments

  Georges Bataille (2004). “The Unfinished System of Nonknowledge”, p.129, U of Minnesota Press

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• When my face is flushed with blood, it becomes red and obscene. It betrays at the same time, through morbid reflexes, a bloody erection and a demanding thirst for indecency and criminal debauchery.

  Georges Bataille

  Blood, Criminals, Red

  Georges Bataille (1985). “Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939”, p.8, Manchester University Press

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• Thought does not ennoble us and neither does it differentiate humans from other animals.

  Georges Bataille

  Animal, Doe, Humans

  27 Copy quote

• If I want to realize totality in my consciousness, I have to relate myself to an immense, ludicrous, and painful convulsion of all of humanity.

  Georges Bataille

  Humanity, Want, Realizing

  Georges Bataille (2004). “On Nietzsche”, p.26, A&C Black

  5 Copy quote

• Eroticism is assenting to life even in death.

  Georges Bataille

  Death

  Georges Bataille (1962). “Erotism”, p.11, City Lights Books

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• Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one's rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them.

  Georges Bataille

  Dream, Knowing, Giving

  Georges Bataille (1985). “Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939”, p.24, U of Minnesota Press

  8 Copy quote

• By the care she lavishes on her toilet, by the concern she has for her beauty set off by her adornment, a woman regards herself as an object always trying to attract men's attention.

  Georges Bataille

  Men, Always Trying, Attention

  Georges Bataille (1962). “Erotism”, p.131, City Lights Books

  11 Copy quote

• To place oneself in the position of God is painful: being God is equivalent to being tortured. For being God means that one is in harmony with all that is, including the worst. The existence of the worst evils is unimaginable unless God willed them.

  Georges Bataille

  God, Pain, Mean

  18 Copy quote

• Sanity is the lot of those who are most obtuse, for lucidity destroys one's equilibrium: it is unhealthy to honestly endure the labors of the mind which incessantly contradict what they have just established.

  Georges Bataille

  Mind, Sanity, Equilibrium

  Georges Bataille (1983). “L'abbé C: A Novel”, Marion Boyars Publishers

  21 Copy quote

• Entirety exists within me as exuberance in empty longing in the desire to burn with desire.

  Georges Bataille

  Desire, Longing, Empty

  "On Nietzsche". Book by Georges Bataille, p. 27, 1945.

  26 Copy quote

• Sovereignty, loyalty, and solitude.

  Georges Bataille

  Loyalty, Solitude, Sovereignty

  Georges Bataille (2004). “The Unfinished System of Nonknowledge”, p.167, U of Minnesota Press

  7 Copy quote

• We reach ecstasy by a contestation of knowledge. Were I to stop at ecstasy and grasp it, in the end I would define it.

  Georges Bataille

  Ends, Ecstasy

  Georges Bataille (1988). “Inner Experience”, p.12, SUNY Press

  11 Copy quote

• At man's core there is a voice that wants him never to give in to fear. But if it is true that in general man cannot give in to fear, at the very least he postpones indefinitely the moment when he will have to confront himself with the object of his fear... when he will no longer have the assistance of reason as guaranteed by God, or when he will no longer have the assistance of God such as reason guaranteed. It is necessary to recoil, but it is necessary to leap, and perhaps one only recoils in order to leap better.

  Georges Bataille

  God, Men, Order

  14 Copy quote

• The owl flies, in the moonlight, over a field where the wounded cry out. Like the owl, I fly in the night over my own misfortune.

  Georges Bataille

  Night, Owl, Fields

  21 Copy quote

• Literature ... is the rediscovery of childhood.

  Georges Bataille

  Childhood, Literature, Rediscovery

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• [F]or academic men to be happy, the universe would have to take shape. All of philosophy has no other goal: it is a matter of giving a frock coat to what is, a mathematical frock coat. On the other hand, affirming that the universe resembles nothing and is only formless amounts to saying that the universe is something like a spider or spit.

  Georges Bataille

  Philosophy, Men, Hands

  Georges Bataille (1985). “Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939”, p.31, U of Minnesota Press

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• Existence as entirety remains beyond any one meaning and it is the conscious presence of humanness in the world inasmuch as this is nonmeaning, having nothing to do other than be what it is, no longer able to go beyond itself or give itself some kind of meaning through action.

  Georges Bataille

  Giving, World, Able

  "On Nietzsche". Book by Georges Bataille, p. 30, 1945.

  13 Copy quote

• Life is whole only when it isn't subordinate to a specific object that exceeds it. In this way, the essence of entirety is freedom.

  Georges Bataille

  Essence, Way, Life Is

  Georges Bataille (2004). “On Nietzsche”, p.24, A&C Black

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• We did not lack modesty—on the contrary—but something urgently drove us to defy modesty together as immodestly as possible.

  Georges Bataille

  Together, Modesty, Contrary

  Georges Bataille (1977). “Story of the eye”

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• The emotional element which gives an obsessive value to communal existence is death.

  Georges Bataille

  Emotional, Giving, Elements

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• The sovereign being is burdened with a servitude that crushes him, and the condition of free men is deliberate servility.

  Georges Bataille

  Crush, Men, Being Free

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• Realism gives me the impression of a mistake. Violence alone escapes the feeling of poverty of those realistic experiences. Only death and desire have the force that oppresses, that takes one's breath away. Only the extremism of desire and death enable one to attain the truth.

  Georges Bataille

  Mistake, Giving, Feelings

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• The truth is paradoxical to the extent of being exactly contrary to the usual perception.

  Georges Bataille

  Perception, Usual, Truth Is

  Georges Bataille (1988). “The accursed share: an essay on general economy”

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